


Hocus Locus: A Ghost Story

by mantisbelle



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Comedy, Gen, Google Translate Spanish, Halloween, Post Season 15, Unhaunted Houses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 15:17:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12584720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mantisbelle/pseuds/mantisbelle
Summary: In search for a temporary base after getting Wash back after the encounter with the Blues and Reds, the Reds and Blues stop at a mysterious abandoned quarry.And it's definitely haunted.Or it's Locus and he just doesn't want to deal with them. That's also possible.





	1. The Haunting

**Author's Note:**

> As promised, here is the silly Halloween fic about the Reds and Blues dealing with a haunted house that I promised. Any lines that Lopez has were translated with Google Translate, and will be in English in my chapter end notes (except for the one line in this chapter for reasons. Hola means hello.) 
> 
> Special thanks to the lovely FandomLastsForever for acting as a beta reader for this fic and as a guinea pig for all of my bad Donut jokes. You're the real mvp. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Exhausted and in desperate need of a chance to rest and do some regular maintenance, Locus decided that it was for the best for him to find a place to rest.

There was only one place that really made any sense for it.

A'rynasea touched down outside of one of the old safe houses that Locus had shared with Felix and Siris in their bounty hunting days. Locus ended up cloaking and parking the ship on top of an old cliff that he’d once used as a sniper’s nest, many years before.

Despite everything, returning to the old safe house alone was sad, even bittersweet.  
  
Locus had been hoping that if he would ever come back there, it would be with Felix or Siris at his side.

But that wasn’t possible, seeing as he was simply the last man standing.  
  
That doesn’t even consider the exhaustion that clung to him. He was so tired that he wanted to lie down and rest forever, he wanted to sleep, and lash out, and drink, and the one thing that he wanted to do above all else he wouldn’t allow.  
  
But he could afford himself a bit of time to rest. He could stay at the old base and do what he needed to do before packing his things again and heading back out into space in search of whatever distress signals reached him first.  
  
Perhaps in the future he’d feel okay with coming back to the old safe house. One day when the haze that surrounded him had gotten more of a chance to clear.

But then, he just wanted to sleep more than he wanted to do anything else.

Locus removed a lone box from A'rynasea, filled with nothing but his few personal affects that he liked to keep on him. Toiletries, a few MRE packets and spare chemical heaters, ammunition and a handgun, and lastly, an old framed photo that belonged in the safe house anyhow as a reminder of better times.  
  
Locus began the walk down towards his safe house, but when he was about halfway there he stopped with the realization that there was just something _wrong._

The last time that he'd been there at the quarry, he'd been sure to leave it chained shut. Siris had held no intentions of returning, and Felix wouldn't have done anything himself.  
  
Locus stood there for a moment outside of the building to find that there was a pile of old mail sitting there at the door. He bent down and scooped it up. The mail had been lying there for a while, if the bleaching on some of the old flyers was any indicator. Locus just sighed and pushed his way into the building and made his way towards the floor that had been retrofitted into a home of sorts. Even with the effort that had been done to change and improve the space, it was still clearly an old quarry building.  
  
He set his box of things down on the table in the room that was now a kitchen and had once been someone's break room before taking a seat and beginning to sort the mail into two piles. Locus already has a list of things that he was going to need to do. Ensuring that the lights would stay on and that there was running water would be easy enough. It wasn’t as though Locus didn’t have the money to spare. Paying some bills was well within his range. Regardless, it would have to be a project for when morning came around.

Once he was sure that everything was in order, Locus dragged himself off to the room that was his bedroom and allowed himself to rest.

Morning came, and Locus started it with checking that payments on electricity and water had gone through. The rest of the morning he spent bent over his armor, which Locus had dissected into hundreds of parts so he could check and re-check every one.  
  
The act of being out of armor still felt wrong, but Locus ignored it as best as he could.  
  
Part of the reason that he'd wanted to rest was to go through regular maintenance. Part of it was because he'd managed to acquire a new cloaking unit on his last mission. It was alien tech, the sort of thing that Project Freelancer and Charon Industries were trying so desperately to replicate in previous years. Locus wasn't even entirely sure that it will work in his armor.  
  
If it didn't, then Locus knew he could just go ahead and remove it. If it caused an explosion, he could afford to replace the armor if he had to. Not that he would ever want to have to do that. Not when his armor has been his skin for so long.  
  
Locus got the cloaking unit installed and almost immediately ran a test on it. The unit turned on silently, which was new, and Locus watched in relief as his armor blended in with the cheap formica table beneath it.  
  
It only too a few seconds for the cloaking to deactivate, and once he was comfortable and all of the pieces had been put back together, Locus slipped into his armor in a methodical, almost ritualistic fashion.

Locus activated the cloaking unit. It certainly felt right, like it was doing its job correctly, and when Locus walked by in front of a mirror, there was no shimmer and no reflection.  
  
And it was perfect. Locus almost felt like a kid in a candy store because of it.  
  
Locus slipped out of the old warehouse and headed into the city so that he could gather some basic supplies. Food probably wasn’t going to be worth buying when he had no guarantee that he'd be able to keep any without it spoiling.  
  
Locus spent most of his night out, doing his supply gathering and checking in on old contacts all in the same runs. When he finally turned to head home, it was late and he was incredibly tired.

* * *

 

The idea of getting to rest again was beyond amazing. World-saving was serious, exhausting business, and yeah, doing the right thing definitely still totally _sucked_ . That was something that Grif had come to a conclusion on a long time ago, but now they had a chance to rest again after getting their hands into yet another situation that they hadn’t belonged in.  
  
They were like fucking magnets for trouble and Grif hated it. Especially because shit always got fucked up in the process of whatever they ended up doing.  
  
“There’s a planet nearby.” Carolina announced, sighing and turning around in her seat to face everyone else that had crowded together in the main compartment of the ship that they’d taken on the way off of Chorus when they’d gone to retrieve Wash. The ship was cramped, loud, and there wasn’t anywhere good to sleep that hadn’t been turned into seating by necessity. Not to mention that there wasn’t any food left aside from the freeze dried stuff, and Grif _really_ didn’t want to touch that.

That was Wash food. Not people food.  
  
“So let’s go there!” Tucker called, walking up to the front and leaning over Carolina’s shoulder to look at the console. “Maybe we’ll find somewhere to sleep that isn’t this fucking ship!”  
  
“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea.” Grif piped up, hoping that he’d get them to listen. Resting sounded freaking great. “Besides, getting off of the ship sounds nice.”  
  
“It does sound relaxing.” Carolina admitted, looking between the others. “If everyone is okay with it-”  
  
“We’re okay with it,” Simmons piped up, sitting in a seat behind Grif’s. “Trust us.”  
  
“Right.” Carolina said with a smile. She set a course for that nearby planet, and for the rest of the ride Grif was able to relax.  
  
They would land on a planet that was almost entirely lit up with cities. Like it had been overpopulated after the war, lots of people running there when they had nothing left and urban centers had only managed to bleed into each other. Neon lights and loud music was a constant, and while some (read: Tucker, Kai, and Donut) had been looking forward to enjoying the nightclubs of the planet, others were looking for a place to stay.  
  
Normally Grif would have gone off looking for food, but he wasn’t quite feeling it. If he could tag along with the people looking for a place for them to stay, then he wouldn’t have to do anything. And he’d probably even be able to get something to eat from a roadside stand or something. Big cities always had tons of street food, and it was always good.  
  
So he tagged along behind Wash and Carolina with Simmons and Sarge while they looked for  a place to stay. They ended up being pointed towards an old quarry outside of the city that had laid abandoned for years, but it ended up being different from what anyone had been expecting.  
  
The locked gates was one thing. It looked like someone had added them at some point years ago and had more or less chained them shut. Sarge declared them “easily opened!” and had promptly had just gone ahead and shot them with his trusty shotgun, then was surprised when nothing happened.  
  
Simmons sighed and moved his way to the forefront and began to fiddle with the locks. Grif looked up at the quarry and squinted at it, not really sure what to make of it. There was something about it that was almost creepy, but Grif couldn’t put his finger on why.  
  
Maybe it was the fact that it was more or less silent there when the city was full of noise and bright lights. The contrast was pretty bizarre, if nothing else.  
  
“Do you really think this is a good idea?” Washington asked, looking up at the building in the quarry warily. “Even if we’re only going to be here for a little while-”  
  
“I’m never sure.” Carolina sighed, crossing her arms and leaning against the gate while Simmons worked. She watched him like he could mess up at any second, a little too intensely. “Kind of brings back bad memories, but we’ll have to work with it.”  
  
“Shelter is shelter.” Simmons said, the lock falling open in his hands as he stood up. The thin man tossed the chain to the ground and pushed the gate open. “Do you think that someone lives here, or-”  
  
“It’s probably just abandoned.” Sarge spoke up. “Or it’s a base for some sort of dastardly ne’er do wells.”  
  
“Or it’s just an abandoned building.” Grif offered. “Which seems likely if the fucking ‘ _condemned’_ sign is any indicator.”  
  
Carolina and Washington looked between each other and then Carolina reached for her pistol and started in. Washington shrugged and followed, and then Grif, Simmons, and Sarge were on their ways in.  
  
It did just seem like an abandoned quarry. There was a cleared out area, and it looked like someone had once tried to create a stone bottleneck by the gate but it had been blown to bits somehow.  
  
At least, it seemed normal until they got inside.  
  
It was hard to imagine it, but somehow someone had managed to retrofit the building into a home. It wasn’t as though much had been done, Grif realized as the group of them climbed the stairs.  
  
What they found was an old break room that had been turned into the kitchen. There was a cheap formica table sitting in the middle of the room with three chairs gathered around it, piled high with mail. Grif approached and picked up one of the envelopes.  
  
When he looked through the mail, none of the names matched each other. Not a single one, and that was strange. Grif set the pile back down and watched as Carolina twisted the tap on a sink and water flowed out.  
  
That was also weird.  
  
“I don’t like this place.” Simmons said, coming in from another room. “It’s like someone has been living here.”  
  
“If they have, they haven’t been here in ages.” Grif offered, looking to the stack of mail. “This stuff goes back years.”  
  
“But the dust has been disturbed in some places.” Washington stood by the door to the makeshift kitchen, and he looked like he had something that he wanted to say, but kept it to himself. “I’m going to keep looking around,” He said, turning and going to the door. “Maybe we’ll find a bed or something.”  
  
“I’ll go with Wash.” Grif said,  taking the chance for some distance and falling into step with the freelancer. “Bed sounds fucking amazing right now.”  
  
“I agree.” Washington said, pausing in the hallway to look over at Grif.  
  
Grif gave Wash an equally weird look back, and there was something that the freelancer wanted to say, Grif was sure of it. Whatever it was, he couldn't quite imagine what it could be.  
  
Probably just that this place was weird.  
  
"So, bed?" Grif asked. "There's gotta be one around here somewhere."  
  
"I would hope so." Washington sighed, following after him as the two of them walked down the halls. They opened door after door, and found what looked like three different bedrooms. Or at least, there were three rooms with beds in them.  
  
Grif found the one with the largest bed, and stared at the mattress like he was seeing a buffet for the first time in years.  
  
"Dibs."  
  
"Goddamnit." Wash groaned. Grif ignored him and went to the bed, flopping down onto it. There were blankets on it, dark purple ones. It didn't look like anyone had used in years, but Grif didn't care.  
  
A real bed was a real bed, and there was no way that he was going to let it pass him by.  
  
Within minutes, he was asleep, and the others were left to continue their patrol of the building.

* * *

 

When Locus returned, he was shocked.  
  
Upon his leaving the quarry, Locus had been sure to lock the gates by the quarry to keep anyone out. He'd locked the doors, even.  
  
So why was there a chain and lock lying on the ground, having obviously been picked instead of cut? And why were there indents on the lock that only could have come from shotgun pellets?  
  
It was all _wrong_ , and so Locus activated the cloaking unit just one more time. He pulled out his magnum and began on his way inside of the quarry, and then inside of his safe house.  
  
Someone has been there, that much was obvious. All that Locus could focus on was _why._  
  
His mail has been moved around, the two sorted piles having been forced back into one carelessly. The box of things that he'd left by the table has been moved, and that was more worrying than anything.  
  
The layer of dust that had covered everything upon his arrival has been disturbed with handprints and fingerprints of all shapes and sizes.  
  
It wasn't just one person in his safe house, it was multiple people. Which was even more concerning than if it had just been one.  
  
Locus pressed himself in against the wall, walking from room to room and opening the doors and closing them a second later. He tried to be as quiet as possible, but absolute silence was impossible. Doubly so because of the old floors which tended to creak.  
  
There was a sound from one of the bedrooms, and Locus jumped, accidentally pulling the office door closed just a little too loudly.  
  
Someone moves in the bedroom again, and Locus hears a drowsy voice.  
  
"-wha was that?"  
  
"Go back to sleep, Wash." Another voice says, obviously female.  
  
Recognizable.  
  
Agent Washington and Agent Carolina were _there_ , in his safe house.  
  
That was very, _very_ bad.

Locus backed away from the door to his bedroom and felt the panic beginning to set in. There were Freelancers in his safe house, and he didn't know if they knew that it was his. What if they were here to capture him and drag him to Chorus? Or what if they were there because of how he had dropped Washington off on Chorus?

Not to mention, there was the detail where if Washington and Carolina were somewhere, it was likely the Reds and Blues weren’t far behind.  
  
Logically,  Locus knew that he should have felt relieved. Agent Washington was alive and well, and his voice didn't even sound like it was that much worse for the wear.  
  
But he couldn't ignore that voice in the back of his head that sounded suspiciously like Felix that told him that he deserved a different outcome.  
  
Locus backed away from the door and turned to the door that had once kept everyone locked away from Felix's room. He pushed it open just slightly, and saw that there were two people curled up in Felix's old bed.  
  
Dark brown skin and lighter brown skin. Lavernius Tucker and a woman that Locus had never seen before.  
  
Some sick sense of humor tells him that Tucker making a home out of Felix’s bed is deserved, but Locus doesn't listen to it. He just closes the door as quietly as he could manage.  
  
If the Freelancers were there and Tucker was there, then that all but confirmed to Locus that the Reds and Blues were there as well.  
  
And as much as talking to someone real for the first time in ages sounded, Locus didn't think that he could allow himself that. Not when he was on the run like he was.  
  
He closed the door to Felix's old room a little too loudly and he hears someone on the other side move around and mumble something. Locus doesn't stay long enough to listen, just rushes out and heads back up to A'rynasea.  
  
At the very least, he could treat that ship as home for a little while longer.  
  
It wasn't going to be great, but if the Reds and Blues were in his safehouse, Locus wanted to try to keep his distance. Especially after Chorus, after the Blues and Reds. Even with the help that he'd given them, Locus knows that only a fool would think he is forgiven.  
  
He fell asleep under the blue glow of his ship's consoles.

* * *

"So what the shit was going on last night?" Kai leaned against a counter, looking at the others. They'd all decided to gather in the tiny kitchen. She's tired and she has a headache because she'd taken way too much aspirin the night before, but coffee is helping. Shots would probably do better, but this lame building doesn’t have anything good for liquor.

Which is like, oppression or something.  
  
"You heard that too?" Washington asked, and he sounds a little bit spooked. Well, spooked for a cop.  
  
"Well, duh!" Kai responded, staring him down in his dumb cop face. "If it was a robber, why weren't you up arresting it?"  
  
Washington looked tired, and he stared her down in this way that made her feel like _she_ was about to get arrested. "I thought that there wasn't anything to worry about. Just someone else getting up."  
  
"What if it was a ghost!" Caboose nearly shouted his suggestion. He was sitting at the table, squirming a little bit with a bowl of overly sugary cereal in front of him. "But like a nice ghost. Like Casper. Or Church or Tex."  
  
"Nice isn’t exactly the-” Simmons stopped himself before bringing himself back to another conversation. “Ghosts aren't real." Simmons says from the other side of the table. "Remember?"  
  
"Well, if anywhere is haunted as shit, it's probably here." Tucker groaned. "We're going to find out that fucking Sarge is right or something and this is someone's hideout."  
  
"If it's someone's hideout, they need to get a _way_ better bed." Kai said, thinking back to the night before when she'd flopped into bed with Tucker and a few too many drinks in her. "I mean, the camera in their bedroom didn't even have film in it, who even does that?"  
  
Washington just stared at her, his mouth open a little bit. "A camera?"  
  
"Yeah, but it was totally bullshit." Kaikaina complained. "I thought that we were going to actually have some fun in this dump, and then there was nothing. How am I going to be the next great lady director if I can't even make a movie in bed?"  
  
"Please," Dex says from the door, and he looks like he's just rolled out of bed, like always. Seeing Dex out of armor again was nice, and it reminded Kai of how much she missed him again. "Never let me hear you say that again."  
  
"Aw, Dex." Kaikaina said. "You're just mad that I'm having fun around here."  
  
"No." Dex muttered. "I'm really not. I'm mad that someone gave Caboose my fruit loops."  
  
"I don't think I like them very much," Caboose said, smiling up at Dex dumbly. "They don't even taste like papaya."  
  
"That's because nobody likes papaya." Grif grumbled, pouring himself a mug of coffee. "I slept fine."  
  
"Lucky!" Kai exclaimed, crossing her arms over her chest. "We probably got robbed last night and the dumb cops didn't even do anything!" Almost to punctuate that statement, she waves an arm in Washington’s direction.  
  
"Some of us _did_ do something." Carolina said, stepping into the room. She's dressed in that tight top that always makes her look super hot, and she's sweating. Kai can't keep her mind from thinking up all sorts of positions and scenarios-  
  
The best thing about blue team was that when they were around there were _always_ hot ladies around.  
  
"Thank you, Carolina." Washington sighed, slumping forward and resting his forehead against the table.  
  
"What did you do then?" Tucker asked, glaring at Carolina. "Because-"  
  
"A perimeter check." Carolina responded, going to the fridge and opening it to find a bottle of water. "And I didn't find anything. Just the same quarry, no signs of activity."

The room was silent for a long moment while they all waited for Carolina to explain.  
  
Washington sighed and began to speak up. "So then it was probably just someone out of bed."  
  
"I still think it's a ghost." Caboose said, sitting off at the table and shoving his spoon down into his bowl of cereal. "It probably doesn't like that we're in its house."  
  
"There's no such thing as ghosts." Simmons groaned, letting his head hit the counter. "How many times do I have to-"  
  
"Oooh!" Something came to Kai's mind, and she spoke up, leaning forward just slightly and standing up in a way so that she was braced against the table. "What if it's a super hot ghost?"  
  
"A... hot ghost?" Washington asked.  
  
"Uh, yeah!" Kai explained. "Like the kind that will do pottery with you, or will write you sexy letters."  
  
Carolina was staring at her in disbelief, and Kai didn't quite know what to do because Carolina always managed to look hot. "I think that you're just describing movies."  
  
"She's definitely describing movies." Dex complained. "And you know that she probably hasn't even seen the real one-"  
  
"You never believe in me Dex!" Kai shouted as she got up and stretched. "I'm going to go and figure out how to make that camera work, you guys suck."  
  
And with that she stalked off to spend the rest of her day making their temporary home a little bit better.  
  
Starting with fixing that camera. She was going to have _so_ much fun when that thing was finally fixed.

* * *

Simmons wandered through the base alone. He didn't really know what he was looking for there, since they hadn't found much of interest the day before.  
  
Mostly he was just opening doors as he passed by them and peering inside. The whole time, he was taking the chance to keep an inventory of the building.  
  
There were a few things about the base that were wrong. Well, there was obviously the problem where it was a little bit too small for the entire group. He had ended up sharing a room with Grif, Sarge, and Lopez.  
  
The most interesting thing was that they found a few sleepings bags in the closet in the room that the four of them had decided to sleep in. Simmons didn't know what had been found in the other two bedrooms aside from Kaikaina's camera.  
  
Somehow, he didn't think that he wanted to find out what it was all about.  
  
Simmons pushed a door open and found a room that looked like it had once been an office of some sort. There was a desk, and a few computer terminals. It looked like there had once been three workspaces set up there, but only one remained.  
  
It left Simmons with a lot of questions.  
  
But, at the very least he could try and see if he could find anything out at the computer. At the very least, he could check whether or not they had an internet connection.  
  
The computer didn't look like it had been used in a long time, and turning it on only proved that. There was a long update cycle before Simmons was even allowed to begin logging in.  
  
And whoever this computer belonged to kept _a lot_ of passwords.  
  
Simmons sat there for close to an hour, checking things around the office to find something that could give him a clue, but only drew blanks.  
  
It was frustrating.  
  
There was a knock at the door, and Simmons looked up to see Sarge there. Sarge looked a little bit like a confused pigeon, but that was fine. If anything, he was probably trying to figure out the building too.  
  
"Hello, Sir." Simmons greeted him, rolling back from the computer just slightly. "What is it?"  
  
"Simmons!" Sarge barked. "I"m trying to find evidence of the ghost!"  
  
"The... ghost." Simmons said, forcing on a smile and realizing then that it might be best to play along. Even now he wasn't entirely sure that everyone had figured out that Church hadn't actually been a ghost. "Right."  
  
"Yes!" Sarge laughed. "When we find him, we're going to fight in the most glorious war this planet has ever seen! No army has ever fought a ghost and won! It'll be a great victory for Red Team! While the Blues were fraternizing with our paranormal enemies, we will fight them and secure a decisive victory for the Red Army!"  
  
Simmons smiled, setting his hands in front of him on the desk. "I don't know about ghosts, but I'm trying to find out who this building belongs to."  
  
" _Diabolical._ " Sarge grumbled, leaning against the desk and craning his neck to try and get a good look at the terminal. "What devils have we encountered?"  
  
"I don't know." Simmons says, trying another password. "None of the usual codes work."  
  
"Did you try password?"  
  
"I did." Simmons sighed. "And One-Two-Three-Four, and everything else we usually use. None of it worked!"  
  
"Finally!" Sarge stood back up, puffing his chest out. "A worthy opponent!"

Truth be told, Simmons didn't really know whether any of them would be able to stand up to a real ghost. In all likelihood, if they were dealing with anything (he couldn't deny that Washington's suggestion that it was just one of their own out of bed made a lot of sense,) it was either going to be their own people or maybe someone with a cloaking unit like Tex or Locus had.  
  
And Tex was _gone_ and Locus was probably off doing horrible things for money. Or maybe not. Maybe he was just still out there shooting out people’s kneecaps with a high impact sniper rifle, as one does.  
   
Come to think of it, Tex and Locus had a few similarities from what Simmons could see, not that he would let anyone know that. Or try to talk about it. Mostly it was the whole doing things for money and cloaking unit thing.  
  
"I guess that we could fight it, sir." Simmons sighed. "But I think that right now what we need to do is just further research."  
  
"Dangit, you're right!" Sarge exclaimed, standing up tall and still puffing his chest out a little bit. "The best way to know the enemy is to find their every weakness. Like holy water!"  
  
Simmons sighed and looked back at the computer. He had a feeling that if he did manage to get in, he was going to end up looking around for ways to fight ghosts instead of actual information. '  
  
"I'll do my best, Sir." Simmons said, snapping a quick salute before turning back to the computer and trying to get into it again. He sat there for a while trying to find his way and eventually got himself locked out entirely.  
  
And that wasn't really good, but it was going to have to be there for some sort of reason.  
  
Mostly, Simmons wanted some clear answers about whether or not their new base was going to be safe.

* * *

After that morning, Carolina wasn't exactly sure of this building that they'd been referred to. There were a lot of things about it that were kind of _off._ Things like the building having power despite being condemned, or the mail, or the disturbed dust in the kitchen.  
  
Someone was going to need to be able to try and figure some of those details out. For that reason, she was standing in the bedroom that she, Wash, and Caboose had shared the night before. If this was indeed someone's place, then there had to be concrete details about it all somewhere.  
  
Starting with who was paying the bills. She'd checked the piles of mail, but hadn't found that much. Two piles, one mostly junk and all addressed to a man named Isaac Gates, the other pile was filled with other things, all to different men with no clear correlation between their names.  
  
Subdividing only got them into a position where it got worse. There were maybe seven pieces of mail to any one name there. In the case of Isaac Gates, Carolina had her doubts. If anything, it looked like someone had decided to use the address for the quarry so they could sign up for things online. There were a lot of catalogs, and everything that was sent to Isaac Gates would have been thrown in the trash immediately if it were her choice.  
  
Carolina walked up to the side of the room. There was a bookshelf there, but it was mostly bare. The books there weren't anything of massive interest- a lot of UNSC manuals that she had read a few times over herself, an English to Sangheili dictionary that was falling apart at the seams, a small box of receipts that offered no information other than the fact that someone had ordered takeout several years before and paid in cash.  
  
Either whoever owned this place was paranoid, or there genuinely wasn't anyone staying there.  
  
Carolina didn’t really know which.

The quarry should have been off the electrical grid, and having running water was even more puzzling.  
  
Carolina picked up one of the books on the shelf and found that it had been bookmarked. It was an old lockpicking manual, one that she'd seen York with just about every other day of their time knowing each other. There was a page on encrypted locks that had been bookmarked.  
  
The bookmark was a photograph of an old military unit- probably taken during the war. No notes or anything to mark who they were beyond UNSC.  
  
Carolina lingered on the photo for a moment too long before sliding it back away.  
  
The door opened and she looked back over her shoulder to see that Wash was there, and he looked tired. Probably frustrated over the night before, just like pretty much everyone else among them was.  
  
"Anything interesting?" Wash asked, walking in.  
  
"Not particularly." Carolina says, waving the old manual around. "Remember this?"  
  
"Oh, yeah." Washington sighed. "York's fell apart and he stole mine."  
  
And yeah, Carolina couldn't exactly act like _that_ was surprising at all. If anything, it answered a few questions about how Wash had been back in the project.  
  
Carolina sets it back down on the shelf where she'd found it. "Whoever this place belongs to might be military. There was a photo, and most of the stuff here is all things that would have been useful during the war."  
  
Washington cocked his head to the side. "So are we ruling out paranoid?"  
  
"I'm gonna guess military but also paranoid. Maybe someone that wasn’t able to adjust, based on the seclusion."

And Carolina couldn’t help but be a little bit surprised when Wash’s only response had been to laugh. It made sense, though, considering that the two of them were cut from the same cloth and that Freelancer had left all of them messed up.  
  
Washington nodded and sat down on the bed, resting his hands on it at his side. “I don’t think we should stay around here for too long.” He said finally. “There are just things about this place that feel…”  
  
“Fishy?”  
  
“Yeah.” Washington said, shaking his head. “I didn’t sleep well last night, but there’s something about living in an abandoned quarry that feels weird. And I’ve had way worse situations, I mean, York was my roommate.”  
  
It hurt to hear, but it was a matter of fact. It was also a matter of popular understanding that York was a little bit of a disorganized mess, before Delta at least. The AI had fixed up some of his less good habits, but nothing could make the living space feel remotely up to code. It was a good thing that Washington and North had kept their shit wired tight, because otherwise that room would have seen regular reprimand on account of York's mess alone.  
  
"He... was a mess." Carolina said, forcing on a smile "But I'm not sure about this place. Having power is weird, Simmons said that he found a computer or a library. The mail didn't make any sense, and then this-" She gestured to the book again, pulling it open to find the photograph inside. "It leaves a bad feeling in my stomach."    
   
"I agree." Washington said. He got up and stalked across the room to peer over her shoulder at the photo. All of the soldiers in the photo were out of armor, which might have been good.  
  
But still, it left her with a lot of questions.  
   
"Anyone you recognize?" Carolina asked, partially joking.  
  
She looked back over her shoulder at Wash and saw that he had a furrowed brow and his mouth had dropped open just slightly. He reached out and tapped on the photo, singling out a specific face.  
  
"I think I saw him on Chorus, maybe." Washington said quietly. "With the Feds."  
  
"That... seems weird." Carolina sighed, stowing the photo back away. "Regardless, we should be out of here before whoever owns this place gets back."  
  
"I agree." Washington said, holding his head up high again. "I was thinking that I would do a patrol tonight to see whether or not there's anything else weird about the building."  
  
"I'll join you." Carolina sighed. "And if we go-"  
  
"Then we'll be walking Caboose." Wash joked. "You know he thinks this place is haunted?"  
  
"I heard, but I'm not so sure about it. I'm more concerned with the fact that Kai found a camera and intended to use it"  
   
"And the mail situation."  
   
"Yeah, and the mail thing. That was weird."  
  
Washington was quiet for a moment too long before smiling. "Isaac Gates seems like a dick."  
   
"Yeah," Carolina laughed. "Reminds me of the time that South had all of her reprimand notices forwarded to your room for two weeks to screw with you."  
  
"That was South?!" Washington’s voice pitched up the way that it always did, into a squeak of sorts.  
  
Carolina just stared at Washington, and then decided to explain.  
   
"Wash, it was always South. And if it wasn't South, it was York."  
  
Wash sighed and nodded. "Tonight?"  
  
"Tonight." Carolina repeated, confirming that the two of them were indeed going out for a patrol that night.  
  
It was the least she could do.

* * *

So staying in an old quarry building was fucking bullshit. There were some perks, like the fact that they had somehow found beds and there was electricity and running water because goddamn if that was hard to get ahold of on the road, but it still _sucked_ .  
  
Tucker had decided to share a room with Kai on that first night, partially because they'd gotten back to the building late and had both been a little drunk. The others had been nice enough to leave a room for them, and the bed was really comfy.  
  
That didn't make up for the fact that Tucker had been able to hear someone moving around in the hall, or that he was pretty sure he heard Caboose talking in his sleep through the walls.  
  
Or that the Reds had all decided to pile into the one really big room across the hall and Sarge snored like a fucking chainsaw.  
  
So yeah, pretty fucking awful.  
  
The close quarters had Tucker feeling kind of antsy so he'd slipped off for a while to get some space. After all, it was a big building and nobody had really explored the whole thing quite yet. Everyone was concerned with the livable part, but Tucker was worried they were going to find fucking space rats or giant raccoons or something sometime.  
   
So that was why he was exploring the highest level of the building.  
  
And that was where shit got _weird._  
  
He didn't know whether it started with the room that had clearly once been someone's armory, or whether or not it started with that one room that was a little too small with no windows and way too many locks on the _outside_ of the door. Like someone had turned a closet into some sort of weird torture chamber or something.  
  
It all came to a head when he found the one room that might have been a meeting room once. It was large, spread out with lots of room. Two large tables sat in the middle of the room, and off to the side there was a worn out green chair that looked like it couldn't have possibly been comfortable.  
  
But that wasn't the stuff that made that room weird and honestly really fucking creepy.  
  
No, _that_ honor went to the gigantic blood splatter on the floor that clearly had never been washed out properly. It was possible that it was paint or something, but Tucker was pretty sure that he knew what bloodstains looked like by at that point in his life.  
  
Almost as soon as he'd seen that, Tucker had run because he needed to find someone that would be able to actually follow when he explained what he saw.  
  
Because Tucker was pretty sure that he had found someone's goddamn murder house, complete with torture chamber and murder room.  
  
The first person that Tucker found was fucking Caboose though, so that wasn't good.  
   
"Caboose!" Tucker called to the other man. Caboose was stretched out on a couch, looking very bored but playing with a small stuffed dog that he'd found somewhere.  
  
Caboose picked his head up and looked over at Tucker with big, dumb eyes.  
  
"Oh, hey Tucker!" Caboose greeted him. "Were you making friends with the ghost?"  
   
"The what?" Tucker asked, even though all of a sudden the chance that this place was actually haunted as shit was seeming more and more likely.  
  
"You know, the ghost." Caboose said, smiling. "I think he wants to be our friend, that's why he was checking how we were all sleeping last night.  
  
Tucker furrowed his brow because he'd been way too drunk the night before to be able to notice that sort of thing. Had someone been checking the rooms the night before?  
   
Tucker couldn't remember. Goddamnit, why had he thought that drinking Kai's idea of good drinks was a good idea? He could never remember anything when he partied with her.  
  
"Yeah," Tucker said, mostly because he was at a loss for words. "Sure, Caboose. Have you seen Wash or Carolina? I need to talk to them."  
  
Caboose tilted his head back, thinking for whatever it was worth in that empty fucking skull of his. "I think that Agent Washington said that he and Carolina were going to get groceries. They said that they didn't like our cereal and i don’t like the cereal either but but Grif really likes the cereal here."  
  
Tucker blinked. "Yeah' He muttered. Sighed. "Sure, Caboose. I just need to talk to them."  
  
"I'll be sure to tell them that, Tucker." Caboose said, smiling wide even still. "I think they'd like to hear that."  
  
"Yeah, I dunno." Tucker groaned. "I just don't fucking like this place, Caboose."  
  
"Yeah, I don't think it's a very good base either." Caboose commented. "There's not even enough beds for all of us. Carolina and Wash let me take the bed, but I think that they were jealous that there weren't enough beds. Sleeping on the floor isn’t very fun."  
  
"Sure, Caboose."  
   
"Do you think that ghosts need beds?" Caboose asked. "Maybe that's why there were so many beds here. The ghost needs them."  
  
And that was the last straw, because Tucker didn't know that he could actually hear Caboose say anything else about fucking ghosts right then. Not when Tucker was sure that he'd found a room where someone had died.  
  
"Sure, Caboose." Tucker said. "I'm going to go and try to talk to the Reds. This place isn't haunted, you shouldn't focus on that."  
  
"Tucker!" Caboose exclaimed, sound a little bit offended for some reason. "Don't say that, you might make the ghost angry!"    
  
And yeah, Tucker really wished that he could have fought Caboose more on the ghost thing, but none of it was going to get through. He was sure of that.  
  
"Sure, Caboose." He muttered, turning and going off to find someone to talk to that would actually be able to understand what he was trying to say.

Eventually he found Carolina and Wash. The two of them were hard at work on something, but Tucker didn’t quite know what. Mostly, it looked like they were trying to do inventory or something just as boring.  
  
“Uh, hey, Wash? Carolina?” Tucker spoke up and got their attention. Both of them heard him, sure enough. And sure enough, both turned back to face him properly.  
  
“What is it Tucker?” Washington asked, turning to face him all the way now. “Is something wrong?”  
  
“Uh, yeah, actually.” Tucker said, taking his time to get the words out because he really felt like he needed it in that moment. “You guys ever think about how this place is super fucking creepy?”  
  
“We were just discussing that.” Carolina answered. "Please tell me that you don't think this place is haunted too."  
  
"Uh, I dunno about ghosts," Tucker started, thinking back to what he'd found. "But I found something that was kind of..." He paused, his voice trailing off as he tried to look for the words to describe what he'd found other than 'murder closet.' "I dunno if really fucking creepy is the word, but it was some fucked up shit."  
  
Carolina and Washington exchanged a look before Washington decided to speak up again. "What do you mean by ‘fucked up shit?’"  
  
And Tucker opened his mouth so that he could really start to explain, but again found himself at a bit of a loss for words. "I'll just show you."     
  
He paused, about to turn and go before he looked back at them. "Also, I would bring a gun or something. Just in case."  
  
That little suggestion alone was enough to make Carolina's eyebrows disappear up into her hairline. "You..."    
  
"I'm serious." Tucker said. "Just get your stuff and I'll show you, just..." He groaned. "Can we agree that we won't let the Reds find out?"  
  
"Sure." Carolina said, walking over to the table where she'd left her pistol. She checked that it was loaded and Washington mimicked with his own weapon before Tucker finally lead them to what he'd found.  
  
"I know this sounds crazy." Tucker said, pushing the door open to the meeting room first. "But I think we're in someone's serial killer hideout or something."  
  
It took absolutely no time for Carolina and Wash to see what Tucker had found. The two of them rushed in, and Tucker followed after. Carolina looked at Washington and gestured to a chair, and Washington understood, taking a seat there.  
  
"This..." Carolina began, raising her gun and holding it near Washington's head, barrel pointed to the ceiling and her finger far from the trigger. "Looks like someone committed an execution here."  
  
"Yeah, no shit." Tucker groaned. "That's not even the creepiest shit, but this is all just super fucking creepy."  
  
"How can it possibly be worse?" Washington asked, picking his head up so that he and Tucker could lock eyes.  
  
"Uh, there's the murder closet?" Tucker offered, shrugging. "Or a prison cell or something. Looks like a broom closet someone emptied out and locked shut from the outside."  
  
"That's... unsettling." Washington muttered, finally getting up and beginning to walk the perimeter of the meeting room. He walked up to the side of the room, and stared down at the quarry from the window there. "If this is someone's hideout, then they would certainly have some advantages from here."  
  
"Yeah, no shit." Tucker groaned. He looked back over to the door, worried that someone else would come in at any second. If someone else came in, Tucker didn't even know how they were going to be able to explain this. Not when it would make things worse. "I don't like that we're here."  
  
"Neither do we." Carolina said with a heavy sigh. "It's a good thing that we don't have to be here for too long, but it's still all worrying." She crossed her arms over her chest. "As soon as we're able to get out of here, we're going to."     
  
"Thank god." Tucker said. "You know, I didn't mind this place before everyone started thinking it was haunted and I started finding bloodstains and torture chambers or whatever."  
  
"I never liked it." Washington said, going to the door and stepping out into the hallway. Carolina and Tucker both followed after until they were outside of the weird torture room. Washington stared at the door and began to unlock the outside, one by one. He paused and brought a finger up to swipe it down the door frame. "Someone's tried to break out of here before."  
  
"How can you tell?" Carolina asked. "You weren't exactly specialized in this sort of thing."  
  
Washington shrugged. "Broken wood. Looks like there was an old sliding lock or something torn out of it entirely."

Tucker glanced over. He couldn’t exact pretend like that wasn’t unsettling as shit or anything. He looked from Carolina to Washington, and then sighed. “So definitely a serial killer’s hideout, right?”  
  
“Well…” Carolina said, stepping away and glancing back into the old meeting room. “It’s probably more complicated than that. The bloodstains in there seem really old, but they aren’t encouraging."  
  
Tucker hesitated. "I still don't like any of this."  
  
"Neither do we." Washington said, looking over at Carolina and letting their eyes lock. "But we're only here for a little bit longer, and then we can get out of here and head back to the moon."  
  
"Well it can't fucking come soon enough." Tucker snapped back as he turned his back on the freelancers. "I'm going out to the city. I fucking hate this place."  
  
And with that, Tucker left because staying in the creepy murder quarry was going to make him lose his shit sooner or later.

* * *

The day passed by. Locus spent most of it away from his base of operations looking to collect supplies, uncomfortable with the idea of being there for daylight hours… or at all, really.  
   
Only once he was sure that everyone that had decided to take over his safe house had gone to sleep did Locus allow himself to go in. Because he didn't want to deal with the problem of what it would be like getting in from the front, Locus decided to drop in from the roof. That allowed him to slip down into the top level of the old building.  
  
Once he was inside, Locus allowed himself to relax a little bit as he made plans for how to get to what he needed. His first stop would be the old office that he and Felix would share. At least that way he would be able to check his contacts and do routine maintenance on his in-helmet communication systems.  
  
After that, getting something to eat seemed good. If Locus could, he'd be sure to try and rest for whatever time he could buy himself. At the very least, there was going to be a couch. Assuming that nobody had taken it.  
  
The good thing about the situation that he found himself in was that Locus had a cloaking unit that he could rely on. Locus activated the cloaking and made his way downstairs. To do that he had to pass by the three bedrooms, and Locus tried to get by them as quickly as possible.  
  
Someone had decided to take the room that had once been Siris' and had left the door open. Locus peeked in and saw that it was most of the Reds there, each and every one of them relaxed. They were harmless, and even if one of them woke up to find him, Locus was sure he was on better terms with Red Team than he was with the Blues, let alone the Freelancers.  
  
A spike of curiosity ran through Locus and he approached the door that had been his once. He opened the door to it slowly, and saw Caboose lying in the bed that had been his once, and the two Freelancers on the floor. Caboose stirred slightly, and Locus froze. He didn't allow himself to decloak, just closed the door silently before slipping off back in the direction of his office.  
  
The good thing about it was that there wasn't any sign that anyone was up. The bad thing was that once Locus found his office, he found that the old desk had been bothered. His things had been moved around, and that alone was enough to set off alarms in Locus' head.  
  
Slowly, Locus lowered himself down at his computer and logged in with an old jumble of letters and numbers that Locus had tried very hard to forget about. Nobody else would know the exact sources for them. His old UNSC identification and the serial number inside his helmet he'd used back in those days.  
  
Concentrating wasn't hard. Locus slipped out of his helmet and frowned when it forced his cloaking to go down. He plugged it into the computer and set to work as silently as he could.  
  
Locus was able to lose track of the time for a while, just focusing on minutiae after minutiae. Fine-tuning controls, checking old contacts and messages. The only thing that managed to stir Locus out of the fog of concentration was the sound of someone moving around in the hall.  
  
He froze and reached for the helmet. Locus scrambled to get it back on in time, and barely managed to cloak himself when the door opened.  
  
Almost immediately, Locus was struck with a rather strong jolt of regret at the realization of the detail that he'd missed. The Reds and Blues needed sleep, sure, but he'd forgotten to account for the robot. Years ago Locus would have wanted to punch himself for it, assuming that Felix hadn't gotten there first. Now, Locus was just struck with a spike of apprehension that ran up his spine.  
  
The robot stopped at the door and stared at him.  
  
“ _Hola._ ” Lopez greeted him, and Locus looked to the door, then to Lopez before allowing himself to decloak.  
  
"Not a word." Locus said, as quietly as he could. He slid away from the computer, closing out everything that he didn't need and logging out. He turned the machine off and took a moment to get his things back into order.  
  
Lopez said nothing. Just turned and left the room, and Locus couldn't help but worry that the robot was going to go off and alert the others to his presence. If anything, he just prepared himself to run. He rushed down to the kitchen to collect the things that he needed, and then Locus left the building and went back up to A'rynasea.     
  
The fact that nobody came after him told Locus everything that he needed to know. However, as things stood, Locus still wanted to be able to rest.  
  
And... observing the Reds and Blues didn't seem like a terrible idea. At least this way he might be able to find a way to keep tabs on them for the future, just in case something went wrong.  
   
Locus hoped that nothing would, but given their track record he had his doubts.  
  
After that night, Locus allowed himself a little more freedom before he could leave.


	2. The Exorcism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Reds set out to fight a ghost, the Blues don't know what to do, and Locus is very tired.

"Haunted!" Sarge barked the word out to the others over breakfast. He'd had plenty of time to think this over, plenty of time to plan an attack! Now it was just a matter of convincing the others that they should go after whatever hideous monster was lurking in the shadows.   
  
"Yeah, we heard you the first time." Grif deadpanned in that lazy way of his.  Sarge tried not to let it get to him, just sniffed and continued on his rant.   
    
"I have reason to believe that this ghost is preparing to attack. We are not prepared for a genuine _poltergeist_ ! Blue Team may have dabbled with ghosts in the past, but this is our turn to show our military superiority!" The members of his army were staring at him with mostly blank looks on their faces. Lopez seemed bored, and that was a damn shame because Sarge was fully dedicated to turning him into the _Ghostbuster 5000_ that he'd always dreamed of.   
  
Grif would serve as adequate bait, assuming that the ghost was like their past enemies. Simmons could help to plan the attack, and Donut! Well, Donut knew all sorts of things about things that moaned so surely he would be an asset in a ghost hunt.   
  
Yes, all things considered, Red Team was prepared for a swift military victory.   
  
"Sir, if I may-" Simmons began, lowering his eyes down to a tablet that had been installed into his right arm years ago. "I think that attacking a ghost head on may be a bad idea."   
  
"Nonsense!" Sarge responded, holding his chin high and puffing out his chest. He placed his hands on his hips and looked among his men. "This is just the sort of enemy that we've been waiting for! We've fought all sorts of terrible things, what are a couple of ghosts!"   
  
_“No hay fantasmas.”_ Lopez deadpanned, not moving from his position between Donut and Grif. For a moment Grif glanced over at the robot and shrugged.   
  
"I think that Lopez is right!" Donut said, bouncing just slightly at the robot's side. "The best way to fight a ghost is to open up to it and let it inside you! After that, there are all sorts of things we can do to make it relax! You just need to be ready for it to come inside!”   
  
_“Eso no es lo que dije, idiota._ ” 

And oh, whatever Lopez had said was sure to be valuable! Sarge was more than sure of it, he was just glad to have such a great army of loyal soldiers ready to march to victory with him, regardless of whether they were fighting a ghost or the dirty blues.  
  
“Regardless of how this ghost is going to fill Donut up and moan,” Sarge began once more, “Red Team has defeated many a great enemy. Agent Texas! The Meta! Felix! We removed the Blues from their very existence! A ghost is just the next logical step in our shows of strength!”  
  
There was a moment of quiet, and when Sarge glanced over towards the door to the kitchen he saw that the Blues were gathered together there. Carolina leaned over towards Washington to mutter something, and he just laughed and shrugged. Sarge caught him saying something about letting this play out.   
  
The Blues doubted the strength of Red Team! And that meant that it as time for Sarge to motivate his men to action. And it all needed to start with a plan.   
  
"Simmons!" Sarge barked the order, turning his eyes on the maroon armored man. "I need an industrial strength hose, a fire hose if you can get one, 24 packages of double a batteries, and a hand vacuum!" He looked over at Lopez, who wasn't paying attention to him at all. "Lopez is going to need it!"   
  
"Yes, Sir!" Simmons said, standing up straight. "I'll get right on it!"  
  
"Good!" Sarge turned towards Donut. The pink armored man perked up at the realization that he was getting an order. Sarge was sure that he would have to make it up to the soldier later since this was sure to cut into Donut's wine and cheese hour. That was no matter. "Donut, I need you to prepare an exorcism! And I know you’re an expert in things that moan!"   
  
"Well, not _everything,_ but alright!" Donut said, swinging his hips and pumping his fists in front of him in some excitement. "You know that I'm going to have a bed all ready for that! I just need to find the padded cuffs and figure out a good safeword! What do you think of 'Forgive me father?' I think it's a little overdone myself, but I think it'll work perfectly!"   
  
"Goddamnit Donut." Grif muttered under his breath in the lazy, annoying way that he had. "That's-"  
  
"Perfect!" Sarge cut Grif off. "I can always believe in you, Donut! And there isn't anyone that I trust more in a bed than you, private!"  
  
"Thank you, Sarge!" Donut responded, snapping a quick salute with a wide smile stretched across his face. "You know I'll do my best!"  
  
And oh, how that salute and Donut's excitement was enough to make the proud well up in Sarge's chest. It almost made him want to cry, knowing that his men had become such great soldiers! Even Grif wasn't that bad!  
   
Speaking of-  
   
The orange soldier was standing beside Simmons. He looked a little bit bored with the situation. Which meant that he was going to be the perfect bait! All that they need to do was lay out a good trap, and then once the ghost came, it was going to be up to the rest of them to fight!  
  
And they didn't even need freelancers, or fancy AI or specialized equipment to do it! All they really needed was Lopez, and Sarge was more than confident in his abilities to mod the robot.   
  
Grif realized that Sarge was looking at him, and all at once the relaxation seemed to slip out of the soldier. He stood up a little bit taller and stretched. "So you're going to give me work to do, right? Because I'm really not feeling like it today!"  
  
"This job is perfect for you!" Sarge exclaimed. "You'll get to spend as much time as you want sitting around and eating."   
  
"I..." Grif started and stopped. He blinked once or twice, trying his best to figure out what this meant. As for Sarge, he was fairly confident that this was going to be a good chance to really show the abilities of Red Team, what with Lopez's genius and Simmons' research, and Donut's ability to spray things with various liquids! "What?"  
  
"You're the bait!" Sarge reiterated. "It'll be up to you to make such a nuisance of yourself that the ghost has no choice but to attack you!"   
  
Grif looked at Sarge, then back over his shoulder at the Blues. He let out a heavy sigh. "Yeah," he said finally, clearly annoyed. "Sure, Sir."   
  
And with that, Sarge was absolutely sure that their plan was going to work.  
  
Why, he couldn't imagine a single way that it could possibly fail.

* * *

"So this plan is bullshit." Grif groaned, and Simmons just sighed and looked across the computer desk at him. The two of them had left the building for a little while to get the supplies that Sarge had asked for. But now they were back, and trying to figure out the best way to move through such a ridiculous plan of action.   
  
"I do agree that it isn't exactly well thought out." Simmons sighed, leaning back in the computer chair. "I don't think that an exorcism is the best way to deal with any of these things."   
  
"Yeah, it sounds like bullshit." Grif responded. "I mean, I like that we have a plan that doesn't start with me getting a buckshot sandwich, but god do I hate this fucking plan."   
   
"At least you don't have to do anything."   
  
"Yeah, only because Sarge decided that he didn't want to actually order me around. He just wants me to lay around, what the fuck is that-" Grif's voice trailed off, and Simmons couldn't help but watch the other man with some interest. Before everything with the Blues and Reds, Simmons never could have imagined Grif feeling frustrated over having nothing to do. "I don't want to be used as dead weight, you know."   
  
"Literally, dead weight." Simmons commented. "Based on how this plan is supposed to go."   
  
"Yeah, no kidding." Grif groaned. Simmons watched as he leaned back in his seat and thought about whether or not he wanted to say anything to Grif. Instead, he decided to look over the desk and when he finally got a good look at it, Simmons paused.   
   
This wasn't the way that he'd left it the night before. The night before there had been a small pile of papers that he'd been looking through. But that had been all cleaned and stored away, and attached to the computer there was a single cable.   
  
Simmons paused and looked up at Grif. "Were you in here last night?"   
  
"I wasn't." Grif responded. "Uh, why?"   
  
"Because I was in here last night." Simmons said, blinking. "And someone moved things around in here." He held the cable up in front of his face and showed it to Grif. "This wasn't here."  
  
Grif blinked and reached out to take the cable in his own hand. He turned it slowly, checking the hook up like he thought he might recognize it. "What is it?"   
  
"It's a direct link for a helmet." Simmons said, calmly. "I haven't seen one since basic. This is high-end too, the sort of thing that people would use to reprogram their equipment."   
  
"So Freelancer shit?" Grif asked. He glanced over at Simmons again, the back to the plug. However he paused, and his brow furrowed with interest. "Or..."  
  
"Or?"  
  
Grif passed the cable to Simmons. "Check the logo."   
  
Simmons took the cable and turned it, running his thumb over the raised logo on the side. Charon Industries. That didn't mean that this was cheap, but...  
  
"That's strange." Simmons said, setting down the cable. "Charon? What would they have to do with-"  
   
"I have no idea." Grif groaned. "But god am I sick of this fucking place."  
  
Simmons nodded. He didn't quite know what he wanted to say at that, all things considered. The building was pretty awful to stay in, and creepy as all hell.   
   
He was even at the point where he thought that it could have been haunted himself.   
  
"Me too." Simmons said, after a long moment of hesitation. "This place is pretty bad."  
  
"Yeah." Grif groaned. "Remind me to never let Carolina and Wash choose a base for us again."    
  
"Agreed."

* * *

"So the Reds are fucking insane!" Tucker started his rant. The Blues had decided to gather in the kitchen once the Reds had decided that they were done with their own meeting.

"I don't see what's so crazy about them," Carolina said, with a clearly amused expression on her face and a cup of coffee in her hand. "They're just looking to fight a ghost."  
  
"Yeah, I fucking know!" Tucker responded with a groan. "I just thought that we were past the 'ghosts exist' phase since all of your Freelancer bullshit-" He looked over at Carolina and Wash. Both of them were giving him looks that Tucker could only really describe as dirty. He wished that it surprised him.   
  
Washington sighed. "As with most things the Reds do, I think that we should just let this play out."   
  
"Yeah, say that when Donut's burned the fucking building down trying to burn sage or some shit." Tucker groaned. He glanced over at Kai, who was sitting there at the table and painting her nails. Once in awhile Caboose would reach over in interest, but Kai was doing great at keeping him away. Which was something, at least.   
  
Caboose looked up at Tucker, smiling wide like always. "Well, I think that they're going about this all wrong." He began to explain, and already Tucker could feel his brain turning to mush as a pure result of having to hear Caboose talk about anything. "I mean, there's definitely a ghost but I think it's a very nice ghost."   
    
"And how do you figure?" Washington asked, his voice going all gentle and quiet in the way that it only did with Caboose.   
  
"Oh, well I think the ghost was here last night." Caboose began to explain. "Yeah, I heard someone walking around in the hall, and then the door opened but nobody was there. The ghost must have closed the door because when I woke up it was closed but you guys were still asleep so it couldn't have been you."   
  
Tucker groaned and looked over at Kai, because he knew for a fact that he hadn't seen anything the night before. "Did you see a fucking ghost?"   
  
"Uh, no!" Kai responded. "But I definitely heard someone walking around in the halls. I bet that whoever it was got fucking bored with being here!"   
  
"Yeah, probably!" Tucker replied. "Can we _please_ get out of here yet?"   
  
"Soon, Tucker." Washington said calmly. "I promise that we're going to get out of here soon, and then..."   
  
"And then we go somewhere fucking normal for once!" Tucker yelled. He knew that the demand was one that he probably souldn't have been making, but Tucker had his hopes. Being able to relax seemed nice. "I'm sick of this shit."   
    
"We all are." Carolina groaned, her eyes narrowing and annoyance showing clearly on her face. "We're going to let what the reds want to do play out, and if it gets chaotic, then we'll intervene."   
  
"Ugh!" Tucker leaned forward and let himself flop against the table slightly. At his side, Kai's pots of nail polish moved, but she darted out fast enough to keep any from spilling.   
    
At least they had that shit going for them.

* * *

"Let me tell you, the most important part of a bed is the straps!" Donut said excitedly as he tore the blankets down on the large bed that had been rotated through by the members of Red Team. He wasn't sure that he liked that they were using that specific bed for the exorcism, since it was just so comfy. Besides, he'd heard some very interesting rumors from Kai and Tucker's room the night before!    
  
_“No hay fantasmas, maldito idiota.”_ Lopez waxed eloquently. Donut nodded along, still smiling the whole way.   
  
"I agree, we could do much better, since comfort is _very_ important, Lopez-"   
  
_“Deja de fingir que sabes lo que estoy diciendo.”_ Lopez responded. He was standing there by the door, looking bored. Donut was sure that he was getting ready for what was to come just the same as everyone else was! After all, preparation was very important before the action started!   
  
Donut took a step away from the large bed and smiled down at it. "Do you think that this will be comfortable enough?" He asked. "I do wish that we could do more for the design, but-" He paused. "Well, I guess that a ghost would know a lot about rolling around in someone's else’s sheets!"   
  
“ _Los fantasmas en realidad no vienen cubiertos por sábanas._ ” Lopez replied to him, and Donut couldn't help but frown.   
    
"Yeah, you're right. I’m pretty sure that’s the klan. At least a fraternity toga party." Donut sighed, letting himself sit down on the edge of the bed. It was comfortable, and sank down a little under his weight. It was really a shame that it was being used in this way. "I really prefer the sorts of ghosts that do pottery..."   
  
He paused and glanced up at Lopez again. Donut was about to say something else when someone came through the door. It was Sarge, of course. He was carrying a few interesting things with him, and he looked excited.   
    
"Donut! Lopez!" He barked. Donut snapped to attention, smiling as wide as ever and waited.   
  
"Hello, Sarge!" Donut greeted him. "We were just getting ready to catch the ghost!"   
  
"Good!" Sarge responded, puffing his chest out. "This seems like a textbook exorcism bed! I do hope that you're prepared to strap Grif down, though! You don't know what his strength will be like once he's possessed!"   
  
"Well, I'm sure that getting handled by a strong man will be nothing new!" Donut replied, looking over at Lopez. "Right, Lopez?"   
  
_“Ambos merecen estar poseídos.”_ Lopez deadpanned.   
  
"Damn right, Lopez!" Sarge responded, still grinning ear to ear. "I ain't afraid of no ghost!"   
  
“ _Por favor deje de._ ”

“Well, that’s good!” Donut replied, turning back to the bed and giving it another once-over to try and make sure that it was adequate. “We need a competent leader who isn’t afraid of ghosts if we’re going to fight this!”

Sarge was looking at Donut with a specific expression that Donut had learned long ago was one of pride. In fact, he looked almost like he was about to cry, and Donut couldn’t let that happen! If Sarge cried, then Donut knew that he would cry too, and then nothing was going to get done! Of course, Grif and Simmons were sure to be doing their jobs, and Lopez never cried, but still!

Sarge was absolutely beaming, and Donut couldn't help but think that it looked wonderful on him. A moment later, Sarge finally began to speak again, once he'd managed to collect himself.   
  
"You always honor me, Private Donut." Sarge sighed, looking from Donut to Lopez with a smile. "I was going to request your help with fixing Lopez up for the big fight, but you always know what I want to hear."   
  
"Oh!" Donut said, looking from Sarge and then over at Lopez. Already he could see the robot doing his best to remove himself from the room, and while that wasn't good, it probably wasn't a good idea for the two of them to think about abandoning what Sarge wanted. "Well, what did you need help with?"   
  
Sarge strolled across the room. His arm darted out so that he could clap Lopez on the shoulder, and as always Lopez didn't react to it. "I was going to turn Lopez into the greatest ghost capturing device this world has ever seen!" He began to explain. "All that I need to do is to figure out how I should install some supplies!"   
  
"Well, I don't know much about mechanics beyond what I've seen in my calendar." Donut said, blinking and looking from Sarge to Lopez. "But I guess that I do know a little about where to install that hose!"   
  
He glanced down at the hose that was in Sarge's arms. Sarge looked from the hose, to Donut, and then to Lopez before plastering on a gigantic grin. "That's the spirit, Donut!" He said. "If you could just help me to find the right port-"   
  
"I know all about holes, Sarge!" Donut said, grinning widely and approaching his CO to take the hose for himself. "You better get ready, Lopez! This is usually a lot of fun!"   
  
“ _Odio todo de ti._ ”

* * *

Simmons had just been given one of the most strange orders that he'd ever heard in his entire life, courtesy of Sarge.  
  
And well, that just made sense all things considered. Sarge always did like his unconventional orders.   
  
However, this particular order wasn't exactly one that Simmons wanted to follow through with. He'd been asked to obtain Kai's camera because Sarge _'wanted to document a glorious Red Team victory.'_   
  
Now, there wasn't a whole lot that Simmons knew about Grif's sister. He knew her reputation, and he knew what Grif had told him about her over the years. He also knew that she had a reputation for a reason.   
  
And also that he really, _really_ didn't want to know why she and Tucker would want a camera in their room. Regardless of the fact that Simmons had a feeling that he knew exactly why.   
  
He stood outside of the room that the two of them had decided to share since arriving at the temporary base. Simmons was at least thankful that it was quiet there for now, because he was sure that it could have been much worse.   
  
Still, he really didn't want to have to do this.   
  
Carefully, he knocked on the door and just waited.   
  
"What!" Kaikaina Grif almost immediately screeched through the door. "If it's the dumb cop, I didn't do it!"   
  
And Simmons blinked, because there was really a lot that he hadn't been able to get used to about grif's sister. Before getting reassigned out of Blood Gulch, he hadn't spent much time with her. Even then, she'd always been at Blue Base after that first day.   
  
"It's not a cop!" Simmons called back through the door. "It's Simmons."   
  
"Oh!" Kai responded. From where he was standing, Simmons could hear her moving around in the bedroom. It sounded a little bit like she had just stumbled doing something. After a minute, the door opened to reveal Kai standing there, alone and wearing… well, calling it clothes was probably generous. "What do you want?"   
  
Simmons swallowed hard. "I was asked to try and get something from you?"   
  
"Oh." Kai said, cocking her head to the side. "I feel like I should tell you that you're not really my type, and I don't like getting paid to sleep with guys."   
  
Simmons felt like in that moment his brain had managed to short circuit. In fact, he couldn't even begin to figure out what he was supposed to think of that. Simmons swallowed. "It's not for that!" He cried, feeling his face flush and get hot. "I was asked to borrow the camera that you found!"   
  
"Uh, if you're planning on making some sort of weird movie with Dex, I really don't want to-"   
  
"It's not for that!" Simmons responded, waving his hands in front of his chest in an attempt to placate Kai.

  
"Yeah, well if it isn't for making home movies, what the hell do you want the camera for?" Kai seemed like she was genuinely puzzled by the whole ordeal. Simmons just wished that literally anyone other than him had been sent out on this particular task.   
  
But, Simmons thought, if this was the sort of reaction that he was going to get, then it didn't hurt for him to go ahead and explain his side of the story in any way that he could.   
  
"As you may know, Red Team is getting ready to..." He hesitated, remembering just how ridiculous Sarge's plan was. "We're getting ready to catch a ghost, and Sarge wanted for us to document the battle."   
  
Simmons left off the specifics of the order, which had involved Sarge wanting a way to rub their victory in the Blue's faces. Yeah, that was probably better off left to the side and kept as a secret.   
    
"Well, that's dumb." Kai said, ducking into the room. She looked back at Simmons over her shoulder and just waved to signal to him that it was safe to come in. Simmons couldn't help but to hesitate at the door before he finally let himself step into the bedroom.   
  
It looked a lot like the other two bedrooms in the base, with a few exceptions. On one wall facing the bed, there was a long, wide mirror, and a table in front of it. Simmons was immediately left with a lot of questions about whoever had last occupied the space. It seemed that they had very particular interests, to say the least.   
  
Really, the room was just nicer in general. There was a decent amount of relatively tacky decoration in the room. None of it was enough to give up information about whoever the space had belonged to. Regardless, the vibrant orange of the decorations was very hard to miss.   
  
"I guess that I'm okay with lending you guys the camera for a while!" Kai said, picking it up off of the table that was facing the bed. "I mean, it isn't even mine. It's super lame because there was like nothing on it when we found it. Who puts a camera near their bed and doesn't do anything with it?"   
  
She just handed Simmons the camera without too much trouble. It occurred to him briefly that he should tell Kai that she should check the storage on it, but decided to let it go for now. If there was going to be a problem, someone would find it later.   
  
"I don't know." Simmons said in a weak attempt to feign some confidence for the time being. "Thank you for lending this to us."   
  
"Yeah, whatever!" Kai replied. "Just get it back to me! I'm going to need it!"   
  
And yeah, Simmons could have gone ahead and asked questions about that.   
  
It wasn't worth it.

Also, he really, really just didn't want to know.

* * *

Locus didn't know what it was that possessed him to go down into the building during the daylight hours. It was getting relatively late, and the Reds and Blues were still awake. Regardless, he was rather confident that he could manage some things for himself in the meantime.   
    
Nothing could have prepared him for the pure chaos that he would be met with.   
  
"Come on, Grif!" Donut yelled from the hallway that the bedrooms were in. "You know that we need to be able to strap you down if you're going to be good bait!"   
  
And that statement alone was enough to raise a lot of questions in Locus' mind. Most of those questions were ones that he didn’t want answers to. It also lit a slight flame of anger that he didn't allow himself to acknowledge because of the pure foolishness of the situation.

Deep down, Locus was fairly certain that he didn't want to know anything about what the Reds and Blues were doing. There was a distant, dumb, panicky part of himself that told him very clearly that moving A'rynasea and trying to clear out anything that was of value out was probably a good thing. (Although, Locus couldn't think of anything particular that he'd be worried about losing. Aside from the building, and even then Locus wasn’t sure that he’d miss it.)

  
The truth of the matter was that Locus had a hunch that the Reds and Blues were a bit of a fire hazard when kept indoors and left to their own devices for long periods of time.   
  
In this case, it seemed that it had only taken a few days for them to crack and start doing… whatever it was that they were doing.   
  
Which brought him to the scene that he was watching play out before him. Locus stood in an empty doorway, watching as the Reds tried to wrangle each other into a situation. He didn't quite know what was going on, but the want to strap anyone down for _any_ reason set off red flags in Locus' mind.   
  
Old habits died hard, at the very least.   
  
He could have left. Locus knew that fully well, he could have just given up on spending time in his safe house (god only knew that he'd given up on using his own bed the second that he'd found out who was using it,) but something made him just want to stand by and watch.   
  
Also, Locus wasn't entirely confident that there wasn't a chance that someone was about to get killed or maimed. Perhaps if that happened, then he would intervene, but that would be risky at best. He didn't know whether or not the Reds and Blues had told Chorus about his intervention with regards to the Blues and Reds. He didn't know if anyone had said anything with regards to his place in that situation.   
  
Locus wasn't exactly keen on finding out firsthand.   
  
He shook the thought and just watched silently as Grif did his best to distance himself from his Colonel.   
  
"I'm pretty sure I don't need to be strapped down for anything!" Grif shouted, throwing his arms out in front of him in a wide gesture. "Because even if there are ghosts here, they can probably go through shit and just possess whoever they want anyways."   
  
Locus did not like the number of questions that a statement like _tha_ t was able to answer.   
  
At all.   
  
"Oh, come on, Grif!" Donut said cheerfully, sauntering up to the orange man and throwing an arm around his shoulder affectionately. "If you're really that worried, we can just choose a safe word for you! I like chrysanthemum, but if you want to pick one of your own, that's okay too!"   
  
"I don't need a safeword." Grif groaned, shrugging Donut off and putting some space between himself and his teammate. "I'll go be bait, but don't be surprised when nothing happens. Because nothing's going to fucking happen!"   
  
"Nonsense!" Sarge barked, stepping forward and putting himself in close range of Grif.

"Your role will be absolutely instrumental to capturing our conniving poltergeist!" _"No hay fantasmas,"_ Lopez said, and Locus couldn't miss for a second the way that the robot was staring at him. If anything, it just served to make Locus feel more self-conscious about his own presence. It made him want to peel apart his armor and double check that his cloaking device was working. But Locus couldn't allow that for himself, so he stood still. _"Si hubiera un fantasma, no estaríamos aquí"_

That statement made Locus' heart sink, but he said nothing.   
  
"Grif," Simmons cut in, taking a step closer to his friend and seeming mostly relaxed. "I think that it might just be best to do was Sarge says. The chances that nothing happens are really high, so there's not much to worry about?"   
  
"So?"   
  
"So you should take a nap or something!" Simmons said, sounding a little bit defensive. "Nothing is going to happen!"   
  
That was the point where Locus decided that he maybe didn't want to know how this was going to play out. In fact,the idea of moving the cloaked A'rynasea off of the roof of the building seemed more and more tempting than other.   
  
Without thinking, Locus opened and closed the door behind him on the way out.   
  
The chorus of panicked cries on the other side just made his face go red and told him that he needed to run.   
  
Because now all of the Reds were _absolutely certain_ that there was a ghost.   
  
As for Locus, he didn't know whether or not he wanted to dispel that thought.   
  
In the end, he decided to stay cloaked, and went to move his ship.   
  
Safety first, as they say. 

* * *

Almost as soon as a door had opened and closed by itself with witnesses present, a meeting had been called between all of the Reds and Blues. 

Carolina couldn't say that she was exactly _convinced_ on the matter of there being a ghost there. But, she'd gone along to the meeting with everyone else because that was the least that she could do for the others. Humor them and play along, and if things started getting to be too chaotic, she would intervene then.   
  
"It's indisputable!" Sarge announced, waving at the door with an open palm like that was going to be enough to convince them. "All of Red Team saw it! You dirty Blues may not believe us, but we know what we saw!"   
  
"This is fucking stupid." Tucker groaned, leaning back into the seat that he'd taken that night. "There isn't a ghost!"   
  
"If there isn't a ghost, then why would there be doors closing and opening on their own?" Kai asks, leaning forward and giving Tucker a weird look. "It _does_ sound pretty weird. And I'm not even high this time!"   
  
"I dunno, but it's pretty fucking creepy." Grif responded, building off of what his sister had said. "Can't we just leave this dump?"     
    
"And risk being haunted?" Sarge barked. "That's the worst idea you've had yet, Grif!"     
  
"Sir, if I may-" Simmons took a step forward, and Carolina couldn't help but be a little bit interested by what he was about to do. She hadn't been expecting for anyone to be playing along with this, (okay, maybe that was generous) but Simmons wasn't one she expected it from. "I think that we should do what we can to try and deal with the ghost tonight, and leave in the morning."   
    
"Oh, we're going to try to catch a ghost." Tucker complained. "Isn't that just fucking great?"   
  
Donut looked around the room before speaking up. "We put a lot of work making sure that the restraints are ready! Nobody's going to be getting off this easy."   
  
"Exactly!" Sarge responded, gesturing towards Lopez. "We even have a Ghostbuster 5000 ready for action!" 

_"Todo lo que hiciste fue instalar una manguera en mí.”_ Lopez deadpanned, not looking away from whatever had caught his interest outside.   
  
"And we did a fine job of it too!" Donut said, smiling widely and reaching out to pat Lopez' shoulder. "We've got to put that to use!"   
  
Washington looked among the group, and Carolina could tell by the slope of his shoulders that he was nervous. Or at the very least, he was trying to make sense of what they were supposed to do next. Carolina had seen it on him a couple of times before.   
  
Carolina just took a step forward and waved her arms in what she was sure was a calming motion. "Everyone, relax." She began, holding her head up high. "I'm sure that there's a logical explanation for this. If we try one more night here, and nothing happens, we know it isn't haunted."   
  
"How are you so sure?" Simmons asked, his voice pitching up just slightly in nervousness.   
  
"I'm sure that ghosts don't exist." Carolina responds. "Do your ghost hunt, but don't be surprised when nothing happens."   
  
"Ooh!" Caboose piped up. He'd spent most of this meeting fairly distracted, to the point where Carolina was surprised that he'd been quiet for so long. Everyone in the room looked over at him and locked their eyes onto Caboose's face. "I bet the ghost would like it very much if we threw it a surprise party."   
  
Washington sighed and shook his head. "Do the ghost hunt tonight. Nothing's going to happen. We'll head out in the morning and move on with our lives, okay?"   
  
There was a murmuring of agreement, and Carolina supposed that was about the best that was going to happen.   
  
There were only so many ways that it could get worse. 

* * *

For hours there had been a communal effort to prepare for the hunt. For Simmons, that meant that he was in charge of checking and double checking equipment. When it actually happened, he was going to be the one in charge of running the camera.   
  
That didn't make him happy about it.  
  
Grif was sitting on the bed that they'd chosen for him. He was annoyed, that much was clear.   
  
"This is such bullshit." Grif complained, looking out the window at the quarry below. "You know nothing is going to happen, right?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure nothing's going to happen." Simmons replied, because really there wasn't anything else that he could think of to say on the matter. "But if all we have to do is play along..."  
  
"Yeah, I know." Grif groaned. "This shit is just like something we should have done back in Blood Gulch."  
  
"Yeah, it is." Simmons said, feeling a wave of nostalgia wash over him. "Maybe we should try and enjoy it?"  
  
"No way in hell that's happening." Grif responded, tugging at one of the restraints on the bed. The good thing was that he was sure that he was going to be able to get out without much trouble. "The good thing is that they're probably going to get bored later."   
  
Simmons couldn't help the laugh that slipped out of him. "You aren't wrong." He admitted. It was true, it was a matter of time before Sarge either got bored or distracted with something else.   
  
Grif groaned and leaned back on the bed. "At least the fucking Freelancers are on our side. I'm just sick of being here."  
  
"We won't have to be here much longer." Simmons said. He checked the time on his hud quickly before getting up. "I think I have to go. Good luck, Grif."  
  
"Just keep them busy." Grif responded, shrugging and turning on his side. "I'm just here to play fucking bait, remember?"  
  
"Yeah," Simmons said quietly. "I do."   
  
He got up and left the room, feeling some guilt for leaving Grif behind. If it was something that could have been avoided, Simmons would have done so.   
For now, it was just his job to play cameraman. The good part about it was that he was an honorary member of the A/V club in high school so he was probably the most qualified for that job.   
   
Well, aside from Grif's sister.   
  
And he was pretty sure that nobody wanted for her to be the one in charge of the camera.

Simmons turned the camera on and held it up in front of him before walking into the kitchen where Sarge, Donut, and Lopez were waiting for what was to come. He looked between the three of them, not really sure what he was supposed to be filming other than that he was supposed to be filming.   
  
"Sir?" Simmons asked, focusing the camera on Sarge. "I believe we are ready?"   
  
"Is the bait ready?" Sarge asked, and Simmons sighed when he felt a pang of nervousness shoot through him at that.   
  
"He is." Simmons replied, holding himself tall and straight-backed. They were going to be done with this soon enough. A part of him was sure that they were going to have to worry about the Blues fucking with them at least on some level, but it seemed like things were going to be fine. At least for now.   
  
At the very least, Simmons was expecting the worst scare that they might see from the Blues would be Caboose in a sheet with holes cut in it. On second thought, it _was_ Caboose so there probably wouldn’t be any holes.   
  
"Good!" Sarge said, clapping Donut on the shoulder. "It's up to you to get us started, son."   
  
"Yes Sir!" Donut said, snapping a quick salute with a wide smile stretched across his face. He tilted his head back, and opened his mouth before letting out a moan and beginning to walk down the hallway. Simmons felt his face heat up at that, and he could hear someone yelling to figure out what the fuck was going on.   
  
Suddenly he had a much better idea of how Sarge thought this was going to go. Without much else to do, Simmons just followed after Donut with the camera rolling.   
  
It took absolutely no time before they were interrupted.   
  
"Who the shit is having sex?" Grif's sister shouted, her voice as shrill and obnoxious as it always was. "And why wasn't I invited?"   
  
There was the sound of an aborted ' _bow chicka wow wow_ ' that came from the room that Kai and Tucker had taken, followed by the sound of a cough like someone had been elbowed in the ribs.   
  
"Nobody!" Simmons called back, watching the door pop open. He focused the camera on Kai for a moment. "We're trying to attract the ghost?"   
  
"Oh." She stopped, her face screwing up a little bit in thought. "Yeah, you guys have to get some pottery going or something, that would be super hot-"   
  
"Or nothing will happen because there's no ghost." Tucker complained, pressing himself into the doorframe next to Kai. "C'mon, let these losers fail on their own."   
  
Kai looked over at Tucker and smiled widely before shrugging and slipping back into the room. "You better be ready, Tucker!" She shouted as Tucker closed the door behind them.   
  
Simmons made a point not to listen to anything else that came through their door, but he knew for a fact that he wasn't going to be able to stop the camera from doing as much.   
  
However, Donut wasn't stopped by this. He just continued moaning, leaning against the door that Grif was in. Sarge was walking behind Simmons, and Simmons let himself turn to capture their leader on camera for a moment.   
  
There were a lot of things that he was prepared for, but seeing Sarge with his shotgun strapped across his back, a hammer and a camping stake on his belt, and with a bottle of something in his hands wasn't encouraging. "Sir?" Simmons asked, pausing to focus on Sarge's face. "What's all of this?"   
  
"We're preparing for battle!" Sarge replied, grinning widely. "I've gotten only the finest quality in silver bullets-"

_"Simplemente rocías las pinté de plata."_ Lopez said, lagging just behind Sarge. _"Y esos son para luchar contra los hombres lobo. No para los fantasmas.”_

“Lopez is right!” Sarge charged forward, not paying attention to much else. “We’ve prepared him to be the greatest ghost catching machine the universe has ever seen!”

_"No tienes idea de lo que dije"_ Lopez responds, in the same monotone that he always used. _"Y no hiciste nada."_

"Right, Sir!" Simmons said, turning the camera back onto the bedroom where Grif was inside. Donut was leaning back against the wall, having thrown his arm over his brow dramatically. The noises continued.   
  
Simmons let the camera track to the freelancers who were standing crowded into the frame of the door to the bedroom that were staying in. Carolina and Wash both gave him looks, and Simmons got the message easily enough. He turned his camera back to the bed where Grif was waiting for the ghost.   
  
"This is fucking stupid." Grif said, staring straight into the camera.   
  
"Enough with the negativity, Grif!" Sarge shouted. "The ghost is never going to come if you don't put some enthusiasm in!"   
  
"Bullshit." Grif responded.   
  
Simmons sighed and continued filming, and filming, and filming. Eventually the time came where the camera ran low. At that point, Simmons put it away and tucked himself in next to Sarge while they waited for a ghost to make an appearance.   
  
Sometime around 2 in the morning it was declared a failure, and everyone went off to bed for themselves. 

Ghosts probably weren’t a thing. Simmons was sure of it.

* * *

After the chaos had finally died down, Grif had managed to get to sleep for a while. It hadn't been the most comfortable rest that he'd ever had. Mostly, he was glad that nothing had turned up that could be a problem.   
  
Grif was awoken at five in the morning by the sound of something moving around in the base. He nearly jolted out of bed entirely and climbed out before tip toeing his way through the bedroom. Of course, he had to be careful to step over everyone that was strewn across the floor, starting with Simmons and ending with the spot where Sarge had decided to splay himself off across the floor like a cat. Or a very large dog.   
  
At the door, Grif was careful to grab a pistol just in case.   
  
Apparently, he was the only one awake and that was something that was going to be a bit of a thing. Grif mostly just didn't want anyone getting killed, especially after they'd already been through a load of bullshit and were just trying to get home once their ship was ready to move again.   
  
Grif let himself follow the noises, which brought him to the kitchen. He pressed his body in against the wall as he approached.   
  
A board creaked under his foot, and the sounds in the kitchen stopped. Grif winced but didn't let a sound out of him before peeking around the corner.   
  
What he saw was a familiar helmet sitting on the table in the kitchen. Dark grey, and green. Recognizable markings on its lack of a visor.   
  
It wasn't quite a ghost, but as far as Grif was concerned it was just as good as seeing one.   
  
Grif swallowed and let himself speak up.   
  
"Who's there?" He asked, peeking around the corner just a little bit more.   
  
"I could ask the same." Locus' voice responded. Definitely Locus' voice.   
  
That made Grif relax a little bit, but he was going to have a lot of questions to ask. He approached the kitchen and turned in. What he saw was a man that had to be Locus, and really, he'd never seen the guy's face before in his life. He looked tired, and he was setting a knife down on the table, holding his hand over it as a sign to Grif.   
  
Grif came in and lowered the gun.   
  
"Locus." Grif greeted him. "The hell are you doing here?"   
  
Locus shot him a look that only read as unimpressed before he lowered himself into the seat that he'd set for himself. There on the table next to the helmet were a few things. An old datapad, and a bowl of something that Grif recognized easily enough as being his and Caboose's cereal.   
  
"I could ask you the same thing." Locus replied,leaning back in his seat and looking up at Grif. "Seeing as you, the Reds, and the Blues have intruded on my property."   
  
"Your-" Grif blinked, because that was something that he hadn't been expecting. really, for some reason he found it hard to imagine that Locus had anywhere in the world that he treated as a permanent base. A part of him had been pretty sure that  Locus was living out of his ship. "Your property?"   
  
"Yes." Locus groaned. "This is an old safe house that me and..." His voice trailed off for a moment, and Grif leaned forward in some interest. "It doesn't matter. It's one of my old safe houses."

Grif had a feeling that he knew what Locus was trying to tell him. He didn’t exactly want to go digging into that mess, but he knew enough and didn’t exactly want to push with that topic. Mostly because doing so seemed like a really fuckin bad idea.   
  
"So how long have you been here?" Grif asked, cocking his head to the side. "Because if you've been here for the last three days and I was just forced to go through a fucking ghost hunt because of you-"   
  
Locus hesitated and sighed.   
  
"I apologize." He said quietly. "The circumstances were rather unfortunate." Locus looked down at his hands, a little bit hesitant. "When I saw that you were here I didn't want to interrupt."   
  
And yeah, Grif was sure that there was still more stuff that Locus wasn't telling them on purpose. Just more shit that he didn't really want to have to pry into, if only because he didn't know what it would end up being like if he tried. He just shrugged and leaned back into his own seat.   
  
He let out a breath and finally decided to speak up. "I don't think you had to do that." Grif said, not really bothering to choose his words or anything. "It's not like we're on Chorus or something."   
  
Locus seemed to lock up at that, and he hung his head in a way that Grif couldn't help but think was at the very least kind of submissive. "I apologize."   
  
Grif just shrugged. "If you want to make it up to me, you're going to eat your fucking cereal and stick around until morning." He glared at Locus, and Locus actually recoiled a little bit from it. The guy was bad at hiding what he was thinking out of his helmet, Grif realized. It made him a hell of a lot less intimidating, that was for sure.   
  
Locus' response was to shift nervously and look over at his helmet. His grey eyes flicked from the helmet back to Grif, and then back to the helmet again. "I understand." He said, pausing as his brow furrowed. "Why the concern with the cereal?"   
  
"Because that's my fucking cereal!" Grif responded. "Sharing it with Caboose is bad enough.   
  
"I... see." Locus grumbled, reaching for his spoon and moving towards his bowl. He began to eat in silence, and Grif reached out for the box of cereal and reached in to grab a handful of the sugary food for himself. Locus seemed to grimace over it a little bit, but Grif had a feeling that the guy had just gone for the first food that wasn't going to make too much noise to prepare that wasn't an MRE.   
  
And yeah, the grimace on Locus' face spoke for itself. Way too sweet.   
  
Grif relaxed into his seat and let his eyes slip shut. It was then that a question occurred to him that he wanted to ask. He picked his head up and stared Locus down.   
  
Locus was about to put a bite of cereal in his mouth when he realized what Grif was doing. He lowered it back down to the bowl and sat upright. "What is it?"   
  
"Whose bed have I been sleeping in?" Grif asked, his brow furrowed. "Because-"   
  
Locus blinked. "Which room?"   
  
"Uh, the one with the big bed. Purple shit everywhere."   
  
Locus went pale and sighed, jabbing at a bit of cereal in his bowl. "An old partner's."   
  
Grif didn't need much to get the subtext in that shit.   
  
There was another pause and Grif's eyes widened, because that meant that the two other rooms-   
  
Kai and Tucker had been in a room that had orange decorations and a mirror facing the bed. And a camera.   
  
The realization of what all of _that_ meant hit him like a fucking freight train.   
  
Locus was staring at him, looking a little bit more than just confused before Grif barked out the question.   
  
"Why the fuck did Felix have a camera facing his bed?"   
  
The way that Locus' complexion paled even further spoke for itself.   
  
Grif never got a good answer out of Locus.   
  
He wasn't sure that was a good thing or not. 

* * *

Locus had ended up crashing on the (his, Felix's, Siris') couch near the kitchen, mostly glad to have somewhere to sleep that wasn't the tiny cot in the back of A'rynasea.  
  
It wasn't as good as the bed that he'd been hoping to rest in, but it was enough.   
  
Grif had ended up falling asleep on the floor on the other side of the room, curled into one of Siris' old blankets.   
  
Locus supposed that he shouldn't have been surprised to be woken up with a gun pointed at his face. He was glad that he'd remembered to slip back into his armor (And really, as far as comfort went his armor wasn't such a problem. After so much time of being it it close to constantly he felt more uncomfortable out of it.)   
  
Locus blinked the sleep away and pushed himself upright a little bit, raising his hands in front of his head to show that he was unarmed.   
  
Naturally, the one that was facing him down with a gun was Agent Washington, and Locus could think of a thousand things that he wanted to say but ultimately just settled on 'you're alive,' and that wasn't good enough to say.   
  
Not when Washington had a gun pointed at his face and Locus was more or less unarmed.   
  
"What are you doing here?" Washington demanded, his face angry. He was still in his sleep clothes, blonde hair messy. Locus was sure that Carolina and Tucker weren't far behind.   
  
Locus swallowed, looking for his words. Unable to find what he wanted to say, he glanced over at Grif like that was going to explain himself. It wasn't going to show from behind his helmet.   
  
"I-" Locus began to explain himself, but found it wasn't adequate. He swallowed again. "This is-"   
  
"Did you follow us here?"   
  
"No." Locus responded, glad that Washington had shifted to yes and no questions. At least this way he could formulate his answers in a way that made sense.   
  
"Are you here to kill us?"   
  
Locus raised his hands a little more, and Washington backed off slightly. Locus took the chance to sit up properly. "No." He finally said, gesturing to the couch as though that answered every question about what he was doing there.

Washington narrowed his eyes at him warily and lowered the gun to his side. Locus just let out a quiet breath and let himself climb off of the couch. "I can explain." Locus said, doing his best to keep his tone as calm and even as possible. It felt a little bit like he was trying to school himself into stoicism like he used to on the battlefield.   
  
"Somehow I doubt that." Washington said.   
  
Locus glanced over at Grif from behind his helmet, and realizing how being there in armor probably looked, Locus reached up to pull his own helmet off. His hands caught near the release where they always did when he remembered how much he couldn't stand being out of armor, even now. Locus suppressed the tremble and removed the helmet before looking Washington directly in the eyes.   
  
"Yourself and the Reds and Blues decided to make a home of my safe house," Locus explained, even though he knew he was going to have to go further in explaining himself. He gestured over towards Grif, who was still slumbering away. "I can explain more, but..." Locus hesitated. Should he wait for a bigger audience, or accept that he was going to have to do this over and over individually and hope that everyone he talked to understood. "I'd rather not do it for every one of you individually."   
  
Washington narrowed his eyes at Locus, and Locus' mind was spinning with things that he wanted to say. He saw the bloom of a new scar on Washington's neck that he wanted to say something about, at the very least an _'I'm glad you recovered.'_   
  
He couldn't bring it up.  
  
Washington didn't turn away from Locus, but he did walk over to Grif to wake him up.   
  
Grif stirred after about the second jab into his ribs. He picked his head up and looked at Wash, and then at Locus before he just swore and sat up properly. "What's going on?" Grif asked through a yawn, his words slurring.   
  
"Wake up everyone else." Washington said, his tone more akin to an order than a friend. That alone made something in Locus jumpy, but he forced it back. Everything else was going to come soon, he just needed to wait this out. "At the least, wake up Carolina."   
  
Grif grumbled something that Locus couldn't make out before he dragged himself off towards the bedrooms. That left Locus and Washington properly alone for a moment. Locus was trying his best to keep himself relaxed as they stood there, and finally he thought of something to say.   
  
"I'm glad you're well." Locus said, very pointedly not making eye contact with Washington. "I brought you to Chorus for care, and-"   
  
Washington blinked. "Right." He said. His expression twisted into something that Locus couldn't even begin to interpret. "I suppose I should thank you?"  
  
"No." Locus mumbled. "You don't have to. I don't-"  
  
"Thank you." Washington cut Locus off before he could say any more. "For saving us. All of us."   
  
Locus just nodded slowly and seated himself on the couch, setting his hands flat on his knees as he waited. Washington understood and set the gun down on the table, just barely out of either of their reaches. It said everything that it needed to.  
  
Within minutes, there was a chorus of tired yawns as the Reds and Blues filtered out of the rooms that they had claimed for themselves.

They took their time getting themselves situated, and once they were in order Locus felt the nervous feeling beginning to creep up his spine. He didn't know exactly what it was, but being partially out of armor had a lot to do with his nerves. All that he needed to do was explain himself.   
  
However, this was the Reds and Blues so Locus knew that he couldn't be so sure of that.   
  
"Locus?" Tucker barked, having noticed Locus' helmet. "What the fuck-"   
  
"Please." Locus asked, letting his volume lower a little bit more than he needed to. "Allow me to explain."   
  
"Then you should explain." Carolina responded, staring him down with her eyes narrowed. "Because even though you helped us, you aren't forgiven."   
  
Locus swallowed and nodded. He reached over for his helmet, partially wanting to use it to ground himself but also knowing that it would have some role to play in explaining what was going on.   
  
"I understand that." He finally said, schooling his expression as much as he could (Locus knew himself, though. It wasn't going to last.) "But you are the ones that have decided to take over my safehouse."   
  
"Wait-" Simmons blinked, looking from the others to Locus and looking a little more than surprised. "Your safehouse?"   
  
"Yes." Locus confirmed. "I haven't used it in a number of years, but it is mine."   
  
"So yours and Felix's." Tucker responded, his eyes widening as he realized something. Locus really didn't want to know.   
  
"Yes." Locus answered, sighing. "I wanted to stop here to do some maintenance, but when I arrived you had already moved in."   
  
"Well, that explains the locked gates." Simmons said, blinking. "There's not really much to say that this belongs to anyone."   
  
"Yeah, aside from the fucking serial killer shit upstairs." Tucker snapped, focusing on Locus again. "What's with all of that?"   
  
And really, Locus wished that he had a better explanation for himself. Really, he knew that it looked terrible from the outside point of view to see all of that. He was also fairly certain that it would just make it all worse. So he went with the best explanation.   
  
"This used to be a base for us when we were bounty hunters." Locus explained calmly. "Myself, Felix, and our third partner would stay here when we weren't sure that we should be outside of this."   
  
Carolina looked like she was fairly interested though. "Bounty hunting?" Carolina asked. "And the blood?"   
  
"An old job gone wrong." Locus grumbled, trying hard not to think back to what had happened so many years before. "It's also about the time that we stopped using this base on a regular basis."   
  
"That... makes sense." Washington said. "That doesn't explain everything, though."   
  
"Trust me," Locus mumbled. "I am aware."   
  
"Good." Tucker answered. "So are you the fucking ghost?"   
  
And yeah, Locus couldn't really pretend like that was something that he wasn't expecting to be asked. He just sighed heavily. "I've been using my cloaking unit to navigate the building." He explained, like that was going to tell them all everything that they needed to know. "To do certain maintenance I needed access to some of the things that I have within the building."   
  
"Like the computer?" Simmons asked.   
  
"Yes." Locus replied. "My ship is equipped with computers, but don't have certain information that I've needed."

"Ah, yeah-" Caboose began, and Locus already found himself worrying about what the man was going to end up saying. "That all makes a lot of sense. I knew it was a friendly ghost."   
  
One of the reds and blues, a woman in yellow that Locus had never seen before cocked her head to the side in interest. "So you're saying that there was no ghost?"  
  
"That is what I'm saying." Locus mumbled, feeling some annoyance beginning to course through his veins. "I'm truly sorry for all of this."   
  
Washington seemed hesitant. He was leaned in towards Carolina, and the two of them were mumbling something amongst themselves. Locus didn't know what, and he wasn't sure that he really wanted to know what it was for sure. Washington shrugged and looked forward at Locus.   
  
"If we'd known that this building was yours I doubt we would have stayed here." Washington said. "There was mail here, but none of the names-"   
  
Locus nodded. "Yes." He sighed. "I prefer to keep my anonymity, so any mail you saw was for someone that didn't technically exist."   
  
"Then who is Isaac Gates?" Grif asked, blinking. "Because there was a shitton of junk mail to that guy. A lot of catalogs."   
  
Locus blinked, because it had been a long time since he'd last heard that name. He wasn't exactly surprised by any of it though. Just sighed.   
  
"You all know Isaac Gates." Locus said, staring off away from them. "I'm not surprised."   
  
"Wait-" Tucker started, blinking. "Is that you?"  
  
"No." Locus replied.   
  
"Felix then!" Sarge barked. "That conniving bastard!"   
  
Locus didn't answer, mostly found himself wanting to go into any more depth on the topic. He just decided that it was best to bring the topic away from where he was.   
  
Sarge looked over at Lopez, staring the robot down. The robot just looked back at him, looking entirely unamused by everything that was going on.   
  
"I suppose that we turned you into a Ghostbuster 5000 for nothing, Lopez!"  
  
“ _No hiciste nada.”_ Lopez responded.   
  
"We did a lot of work to install that hosing, Lopez!" Donut responded. "It's really too bad we didn't get to put to use!" 

_"No quería ponerlo en uso."_ Lopez said, and a part of Locus almost wanted to wince. But he also didn’t want to ask too many questions.

Donut, however, seemed to only understand about half of what Lopez had said (and really, Locus didn’t know why this surprised him at all.) “Awww,” Donut started, and his tone sounded genuinely disappointed by what Lopez had said. “But it could have been so much fun! We could have had such great times together!”  

_"No quiero pasar tiempo contigo."_ Lopez responded.

Locus swallowed, figuring that maybe this tangent wasn’t such a  good one to allow the Reds and Blues to follow. At the very least, he was sure that it would only end poorly.

"Well..." Donut sighed. "No _does_ mean no-"   
  
"Donut." Carolina said, raising her voice just enough to ensure that the attention of the group was on her instead of what Donut was saying. "We aren't done here."   
  
"Oh, you're right!" Donut exclaimed, almost bouncing back into the spot where he'd been standing.   
  
"Thank you." Locus said, feeling almost sheepish. "If I may ask," Locus said, looking more directly at the freelancers than at the rest of the reds and blues. "How much longer are you planning to stay here?"   
  
Washington and Carolina exchanged a look, and finally Washington decided to speak up. "We were only thinking that we'd be here once the ghost issue was sorted out." Washington's voice trailed off for just a moment, but Locus didn't press the issue. However, he finally started to say something. "I suppose that we've done that now, though?"   
  
Locus felt his face stretch a little bit, into a slight smile. He tried his best to calm his expression and go back to a safe neutral, but it didn't work so easily. "I believe so." Locus replied. He thought for a moment, since he was sure that he would need to be leaving soon anyways. "I'm on a similar timeline, once I finish what I need to do."   
  
"Right." Carolina said, cocking her head and still staring Locus down in a way that only managed to be intimidating, despite everything. "And what would you prefer happen?"   
  
"What?" Locus blinked.   
  
"Well, we're in your building." Tucker spoke up. He was leaning against the couch. "So..."   
  
Locus hesitated. He should have just told them to leave, but Locus knew that probably wasn't a good idea. He just sighed. "You may stay as long as you need to." He said finally. "I know I don't have any ground to make orders."   
  
"Nonsense!" Sarge barked. "You helped save us all!"   
  
Locus just waved the concern away. "And you chose not to report me, if the fact that I've seen no trouble is any indicator."   
  
"Well," Simmons started with a shrug. "That is true-"   
  
Locus nodded. "Feel free to stay as long as you need to." He finally said, hoping that it was going to be enough to make things work out better for everyone involved.   
  
Caboose blinked. "So that means that there's no ghost?"   
    
"Yeah, Caboose." Tucker groaned. "No fucking ghost. Just Locus."   
  
"It's a damn shame too!" Sarge responded, smiling widely and puffing his chest out. "Red team was ready for a decisive victory against the paranormal!"   
  
"No ghosts here." Locus sighed. "I'm sorry."   
  
There was a long pause, and Locus almost felt like he would be able to relax.   
He just let out a quiet sigh. "Will that be alright?"   
  
"Yeah, sounds good to me." Tucker said, looking over at Washington and Carolina. He paused, then snapped his attention back to Locus. "So why the fuck does Felix have a camera in his fucking bedroom?"   
  
Locus felt the veneer of calm that he was wearing crack, letting out a snicker.   
That was one question that he wasn't going to answer.   
  
The Reds and Blues were going to have to deal with that on their own.   
  
However for the time being, Locus was okay with staying there and sharing the space. It would only be a little while before he was off on his own heading into space again.   
    
The Reds and Blues mostly seemed glad that there weren't any ghosts, and Locus was just left wondering whether he should have said something sooner.   
  
Either way, it was too late for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lopez's lines, in order of appearance:
> 
> "There are no ghosts."  
> "That's not what I said, idiot"  
> "There is no ghost."  
> "That's not what I said, moron."  
> "Ghosts don't actually come covered in sheets."  
> "You both deserve to be possessed"  
> "Please stop"  
> "I hate all of you"  
> "There is no ghost."  
> "If there was a ghost, we wouldn't be here."  
> "all you did was install a hose in me."  
> "You just spray painted them silver."  
> "And those are for fighting werewolves. Not ghosts."  
> "You have no idea what I said."  
> "And you didn't do anything."  
> "You didn't do anything."  
> "I didn't want to put it to use."  
> "I don't want to spend any time with you."

**Author's Note:**

> Any and all comments and criticism are greatly appreciated.
> 
> [I'm on tumblr. Sometimes stuff happens. I'm always willing to take new prompts and questions there!](http://tyrian-callows.tumblr.com/)


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